At home with the 'rents and little bro

I'm up home staying with my parents for the next three weeks so I don't know if I'll be able to update that often. My Goth teenage brother hogs the computer all the time playing all his Goth iTunes (Soundtrack to Constantine? Check. Nine Inch Nails? Check. The Bravery? Check. Communcating with all his Goth friends on that cyberhaven for high schoolers (a.k.a. MySpace)? Check, Check, Check. He dresses totally Abercrombie on the outside so you would never know deep inside he likes Goth music. He's funny though, I really love him. The craziest stuff happens to him all the time and he keeps our family life interesting. Like the time a bat got into his room (our house backs to the woods and all sorts of deer, bats, and beavers live there). It was 2:00 am and a bat got inside his room. It must have come into the house when we opened the garage door at some point earlier in the day and it came in and hid in my brother's closet. At night, after he was done with his iTunes and MySpace session, he went to sleep. The bat came out of the closet and started flying around the room. My brother freaked out and tried to hit it with his pillow. That made the bat mad and it started charging at my brother. He didn't want to open his bedroom door for fear the bat might come into the room where I was sleeping with the kids, so he opened his window and jumped out of it. The bat did not follow. It liked my brother's room. Now my brother was outside at 3 AM, freezing cold, wearing only his t-shirt and boxers. But, he did have his cell phone with him (must have rememberd to take it before he jumped out the window.) He called my parents who were like "Where are you calling from? Outside the house?" and he's like "Yeah look out the window, I'm outside". By this time I woke up from the commotion too. My brother is yelling "There's a bat in my room, it tried to kill me. Don't let him out of my room and into the house, it will get the kids." My Dad is experienced in bat removal from living here (even though by profession he's a Psychiatrist) and proceeded to find the bat. He went into my brother's room and grabbed it into a towel and set it free outside. What a night!

If you ever experience a bat in your home, here's tip. If you're having trouble luring a bat out of it's hiding place take a tennis racket and wave it up and down in the air. The high pitched noise this creates drives bat crazy and they will come out, flying with poor coordination and agility. Once it's out, try to capture it by holding a towel in front and grabbing it inside. Then set it free outside. Try not to whack the bat. This will knock the bat out and cause it to suffer serious bodily damage, although once when a bat really bothered my brother he whacked it and it seemed to go into some kind of painful convulsion. He had to kill it by taking it outside and running over it with his car to put it out of its misery. Again, resist the urge to whack the bat.

However, if you are a mom and are home alone, forget everything I just said and get out of the house with your kids and cell phone and call 911. They will get the SPCA or some kind of pest removal out to your home to get the bat out safely. Don't take chances, especially with kids around. Getting rid of rodents is a man's job, not ours.